Yes, yes, I know, if I were truly wired, I'd have a PC/media center tied directly to the flatscreen in my living room. But that's not how the decor fo the living room plays out -- and in the meantime, the $80 RITECH Chinese we-don't-need-no-stinkin'-regions DVD player plays DivX and Mpeg4 files as data files straight off the DVD. Meaning I'm enjoying Doctor Who in damn fine quality on the old 32" Panasonic hardtop. Just the sound of that theme song fills me with unbridled glee.
My point? Sometimes, the half-step tech solve is what you need.
Wednesday, June 01, 2005
Tuesday, May 31, 2005
How Small a World?
First off, all the links in the Screenwriting section, particularly John August, are worth reading today. His is mostly about getting an agent/your first script, but one thing I'd like to focus on there is his reminder that your first script will not sell.
This is heartbreaking considering how much work went into it. And there are, of course, exceptions. But that script's job is to get you an agent and get you work. Period. I'm fifteen-odd paid movie scripts in, and my spec still sits on the shelf. It got me my meetings, and my first "why-not-it's-a-good-take-and-he's-cheap" assignment. But if there's one massive bit of engram rewriting I could do in every young writer's brain -- this is the long game. It's baseball, and you want to be Yastremski, hitting every day in the cage until your knuckles bleed. Then, "suddenly" you wake up five years later and you're writing $100 million dollar movies.
If, in some insane bit of luck, your script gets some attention, I firmly believe you need to go into those meetings selling yourself as the assignment guy. Tell the agents you're talking to that looking for rewrites. Let them understand they have a person here who knows how the business works, and is prepared to make the effort they're going to put into selling you pay off.
Of course, there's an art to the rewrite pitch, and I may be able to help you there -- that one goes up next week, after I catch up on my pages lost to this filthy flu.
Some of you may have singular artistic visions you wish to pursue. Trust me, it's far easier to pursue them once you've established working relationships with other film-making humans. By, say, working.
Oh, and the title of the post comes from CHUD's review today of Season 1 & 2 of MOONLIGHTING. The show came on my first year at McGill, in Montreal. Only one guy on the floor had a TV, and we'd cram in there to watch hockey -- but one other guy and I would bribe the dude with beer and candy to be able to watch Moonlighting. We were hooked once we'd stumbled across the pilot.
Dan, the other fan, was in his last year at McGill. He was a screenwriting major -- in a college with no screenwriting major. He essentially created it out of whole cloth, and conned the English Department into letting him be the only graduate. We became friends, and he's one of the reasons I becamse a writer, because I saw how you could do it by, well, just goddam writing and not letting anyone stop you.
I had the pleasure of reading his full script he wrote for his major. The name eludes me, but the plot of it involved a small town male babysitter; the genius 11 year-old girl who seduced him so he could be blackmailed into her insane plot of killing Santa Claus; and her narcoleptic younger brother. Every time the brother passed out, he whispered a few random words -- which you realized halfway through the script formed a completely separate but parallel storyline. It remains one of the funniest and most insanely inspired things I've read in close to twenty years.
Not yet thinking I would be leaving Physics, I lost track of Dan as soon as he graduated. He came to Hollywood. Years later, when I arrived, I asked about him.
It was Dan Waters. Dan, of course, wroter HEATHERS, and most peculiarly, BATMAN RETURNS. Which introduced the Michelle Pfeiffer Catwoman. Which was so popular, they commissioned a spin-off movie. Dan Waters wrote the first draft of CATWOMAN back in 1993-ish.
And ten years later, I came on to rewrite it.
He'd left ten years earlier, claiming the movie was doomed. I should've called him ...
This is heartbreaking considering how much work went into it. And there are, of course, exceptions. But that script's job is to get you an agent and get you work. Period. I'm fifteen-odd paid movie scripts in, and my spec still sits on the shelf. It got me my meetings, and my first "why-not-it's-a-good-take-and-he's-cheap" assignment. But if there's one massive bit of engram rewriting I could do in every young writer's brain -- this is the long game. It's baseball, and you want to be Yastremski, hitting every day in the cage until your knuckles bleed. Then, "suddenly" you wake up five years later and you're writing $100 million dollar movies.
If, in some insane bit of luck, your script gets some attention, I firmly believe you need to go into those meetings selling yourself as the assignment guy. Tell the agents you're talking to that looking for rewrites. Let them understand they have a person here who knows how the business works, and is prepared to make the effort they're going to put into selling you pay off.
Of course, there's an art to the rewrite pitch, and I may be able to help you there -- that one goes up next week, after I catch up on my pages lost to this filthy flu.
Some of you may have singular artistic visions you wish to pursue. Trust me, it's far easier to pursue them once you've established working relationships with other film-making humans. By, say, working.
Oh, and the title of the post comes from CHUD's review today of Season 1 & 2 of MOONLIGHTING. The show came on my first year at McGill, in Montreal. Only one guy on the floor had a TV, and we'd cram in there to watch hockey -- but one other guy and I would bribe the dude with beer and candy to be able to watch Moonlighting. We were hooked once we'd stumbled across the pilot.
Dan, the other fan, was in his last year at McGill. He was a screenwriting major -- in a college with no screenwriting major. He essentially created it out of whole cloth, and conned the English Department into letting him be the only graduate. We became friends, and he's one of the reasons I becamse a writer, because I saw how you could do it by, well, just goddam writing and not letting anyone stop you.
I had the pleasure of reading his full script he wrote for his major. The name eludes me, but the plot of it involved a small town male babysitter; the genius 11 year-old girl who seduced him so he could be blackmailed into her insane plot of killing Santa Claus; and her narcoleptic younger brother. Every time the brother passed out, he whispered a few random words -- which you realized halfway through the script formed a completely separate but parallel storyline. It remains one of the funniest and most insanely inspired things I've read in close to twenty years.
Not yet thinking I would be leaving Physics, I lost track of Dan as soon as he graduated. He came to Hollywood. Years later, when I arrived, I asked about him.
It was Dan Waters. Dan, of course, wroter HEATHERS, and most peculiarly, BATMAN RETURNS. Which introduced the Michelle Pfeiffer Catwoman. Which was so popular, they commissioned a spin-off movie. Dan Waters wrote the first draft of CATWOMAN back in 1993-ish.
And ten years later, I came on to rewrite it.
He'd left ten years earlier, claiming the movie was doomed. I should've called him ...
Monday, May 30, 2005
Mad Hot Ballroom
I cannot even pretend cynicism here.
I'm not sure when this documentary about 5th graders in New York entering a city-wide ballroom dance contest hits critical mass.
It starts when you meet the kids, and they talk about their lives and how they percieve the world. It's not quite when the pudgy kid gets picked over his more confident older brother, not quite when you realize that the two kids who aren't allowed by their religions to dance -- one Jewish and one Muslium -- are best friends while acting as DJ's. Not quite when the 11 year old girls talk about being harassed by drunk men, or begging their mom to leave their dads who cheat, and the decision they've made not to join the street culture. Not quite when you understand that the angelic boy speaks no English, but he's a hero and protected by his peers because he's born to dance.
It's not quite when you realize that the dance teacher who seems a little too driven cracks, and you understand that she's lost too many of her kids back into despair. Or when the New York Public School dance teachers break out into an impromptu dance-off/celebration in a basement in Brooklyn.
But somehow, by the time the final city-wide dance finals occur, the movie is a fat adrenaline needle of joy plunged straight into your chest.
I don't care where it's playing. I don't care how far you have to drive. Go. Now.
I'm not sure when this documentary about 5th graders in New York entering a city-wide ballroom dance contest hits critical mass.
It starts when you meet the kids, and they talk about their lives and how they percieve the world. It's not quite when the pudgy kid gets picked over his more confident older brother, not quite when you realize that the two kids who aren't allowed by their religions to dance -- one Jewish and one Muslium -- are best friends while acting as DJ's. Not quite when the 11 year old girls talk about being harassed by drunk men, or begging their mom to leave their dads who cheat, and the decision they've made not to join the street culture. Not quite when you understand that the angelic boy speaks no English, but he's a hero and protected by his peers because he's born to dance.
It's not quite when you realize that the dance teacher who seems a little too driven cracks, and you understand that she's lost too many of her kids back into despair. Or when the New York Public School dance teachers break out into an impromptu dance-off/celebration in a basement in Brooklyn.
But somehow, by the time the final city-wide dance finals occur, the movie is a fat adrenaline needle of joy plunged straight into your chest.
I don't care where it's playing. I don't care how far you have to drive. Go. Now.
Sunday, May 29, 2005
Singularity I
Charles Stross, who writes some very spiffy stuff, has put together a fascinatiing hypertext guide to the latest SF hotbutton. You can check out his:
Singularity: A Tough Guide to the Rapture of the Nerds
and speak knowledgeably about such things at your next rockin' science fiction/jello shots party.
Singularity: A Tough Guide to the Rapture of the Nerds
and speak knowledgeably about such things at your next rockin' science fiction/jello shots party.
Friday, May 27, 2005
Hey, we marched forward a little.
Update to below -- the House defeated the possibly crippling "limit on women in combat units" bill. Credit where credit is due. (via the always excellent Intel Dump)
Lessons Learned #234 - Danish Porn
When a friend asks your wife and you to watch a Danish movie that's intermittently hard-core porn to help out with her figuring how to market it on DVD ...
... say no.
Actual conversation:
"God, that room-mate character -- she's HIDEOUS! Fifty-year old women with bad nose jobs and collagen lips should not be doing -- AGGGHHH!"
"SWEET GOD! Is that her idea of sexy, advancing on his crotch with her eyes rolled back and tongue gaping out off her unhinged maw --"
"Seriously. In the fucked-up Japanese anime version of this film, she would be a sexy Japanese girl, but then she'd lift her skirt to reveal that face flicking her tongue out at you."
"You could sell that movie in Japan."
"I could build an industry on that movie in Japan."
... say no.
Actual conversation:
"God, that room-mate character -- she's HIDEOUS! Fifty-year old women with bad nose jobs and collagen lips should not be doing -- AGGGHHH!"
"SWEET GOD! Is that her idea of sexy, advancing on his crotch with her eyes rolled back and tongue gaping out off her unhinged maw --"
"Seriously. In the fucked-up Japanese anime version of this film, she would be a sexy Japanese girl, but then she'd lift her skirt to reveal that face flicking her tongue out at you."
"You could sell that movie in Japan."
"I could build an industry on that movie in Japan."
Thursday, May 26, 2005
Lost Finale
-- SPOILERS --
First, the praise:
-- bonus carry-over from last week:"black rock" reveal. Whizza.
-- Subtle Rousseau clue that they were focusing on the wrong boy.
-- Statue reveal on Charlie
-- Michael's secret sin
-- *GURK* "Do not. Hit me. Again."
-- the realization that if the show now just became Michael, Jin, and Sawyer on Vengeance Road looking for the kid, I'd watch every episode twice. I don't care how gay that makes me. Twice.
But all in all, that ...
... that ...
.. was not what I was hoping for.
On one hand, shortly after I wrote this, I got a quick e-mail from one of the show creators saying "Hilarious! You will see this addressed soon!" So the whole "you six people clique" was amusing.
Again, this is all from loving the show. But to borrow from our Jargon Preservation Project, there was an awful lot of "up and back".
Huge chunks of flashback, with little or no new information -- the only bit being the revelation of "devoted Dad" Michael's secret sin ... no new info in Charlie's, Locke's, Hurley's (except the comic being his, but was that worth five minutes?*), and you could say maybe Jin gave you at least a variant on his info.
We already knew that Locke and Jack had different views of the island. They've had this almost exact same speech before, in a slightly different context. Although I have to say, Jack might have been a little more open to the whole "This island is hinky" speech after seeing the Giant Snatching Black Cloud of Doom. He's approaching a Second-season Scully Blindspot here.
If you didn't see the science teacher thing coming, well ... you don't watch a lot of TV.
The greatest moment was, of course, "We have to take your boy". My wife was freaking, and it was magnificent -- although I guessed it from the French Chick comment earlier when she said the Others were "coming for the boy." I was thinking -- "Now hoo-haw, THAT'S a GODDAM CLIFFHANGER!" Then I remembered that they needed to blow up the hatch. How do you beat THAT?
You don't.
You know they're going to open the hatch. There's no suspense. As a viewer, you know it's the season finale, you know they've been harping on trying to open the hatch for close to ten episodes, any suspense beats on whether they're going to open the hatch are wasted beats. So the payoff for the cliffhanger has to be, what'll we see IN the hatch?
A ladder? You mean, the hatch has some way of traversing within and without it? Oh sweet MOTHER OF GOD !! And it goes really far down? Not so far down as to be deeper than, say an ordinary parking garage's ventilation shaft , but DOWN? AAAAAGHHHH!
Feh. I didn't want to see everything. I didn't want to see the Control Room with the Brain-puter and the floating brains in jars full of diet ginger ale. I'm fully aware, those who-loved-it-and-think-we're-being-grumpy-pants, that you need to leave some mysteries for next season. You don't find Mulder's sister in Season One (on the other hand, you don't make mulder's sister an ascended spirit-girl, either. Fuckers.).
But I think that if all three hours of Exodus were compressed into one, I would've been lying on the floor in a puddle. I firmly believe the writers struggled valiantly against network-order bloat, but in the end were defeated.
This is a tricky moment for the show -- genre shows create rabid audiences, but once you lose them, they don't just go away -- they frikkin' turn.
I look forward to second season, but I hope they're working on the bible even as we speak.
*there is a theory that this was to show Hurley wasn't supposed to get on the plane -- he was the only one the numbers/island were trying to stop from coming. If so this flashback is fair game. But personally I wouldn't spend five mintues laying obtuse pipe in my cliffhanger finale.
First, the praise:
-- bonus carry-over from last week:"black rock" reveal. Whizza.
-- Subtle Rousseau clue that they were focusing on the wrong boy.
-- Statue reveal on Charlie
-- Michael's secret sin
-- *GURK* "Do not. Hit me. Again."
-- the realization that if the show now just became Michael, Jin, and Sawyer on Vengeance Road looking for the kid, I'd watch every episode twice. I don't care how gay that makes me. Twice.
But all in all, that ...
... that ...
.. was not what I was hoping for.
On one hand, shortly after I wrote this, I got a quick e-mail from one of the show creators saying "Hilarious! You will see this addressed soon!" So the whole "you six people clique" was amusing.
Again, this is all from loving the show. But to borrow from our Jargon Preservation Project, there was an awful lot of "up and back".
Huge chunks of flashback, with little or no new information -- the only bit being the revelation of "devoted Dad" Michael's secret sin ... no new info in Charlie's, Locke's, Hurley's (except the comic being his, but was that worth five minutes?*), and you could say maybe Jin gave you at least a variant on his info.
We already knew that Locke and Jack had different views of the island. They've had this almost exact same speech before, in a slightly different context. Although I have to say, Jack might have been a little more open to the whole "This island is hinky" speech after seeing the Giant Snatching Black Cloud of Doom. He's approaching a Second-season Scully Blindspot here.
If you didn't see the science teacher thing coming, well ... you don't watch a lot of TV.
The greatest moment was, of course, "We have to take your boy". My wife was freaking, and it was magnificent -- although I guessed it from the French Chick comment earlier when she said the Others were "coming for the boy." I was thinking -- "Now hoo-haw, THAT'S a GODDAM CLIFFHANGER!" Then I remembered that they needed to blow up the hatch. How do you beat THAT?
You don't.
You know they're going to open the hatch. There's no suspense. As a viewer, you know it's the season finale, you know they've been harping on trying to open the hatch for close to ten episodes, any suspense beats on whether they're going to open the hatch are wasted beats. So the payoff for the cliffhanger has to be, what'll we see IN the hatch?
A ladder? You mean, the hatch has some way of traversing within and without it? Oh sweet MOTHER OF GOD !! And it goes really far down? Not so far down as to be deeper than, say an ordinary parking garage's ventilation shaft , but DOWN? AAAAAGHHHH!
Feh. I didn't want to see everything. I didn't want to see the Control Room with the Brain-puter and the floating brains in jars full of diet ginger ale. I'm fully aware, those who-loved-it-and-think-we're-being-grumpy-pants, that you need to leave some mysteries for next season. You don't find Mulder's sister in Season One (on the other hand, you don't make mulder's sister an ascended spirit-girl, either. Fuckers.).
But I think that if all three hours of Exodus were compressed into one, I would've been lying on the floor in a puddle. I firmly believe the writers struggled valiantly against network-order bloat, but in the end were defeated.
This is a tricky moment for the show -- genre shows create rabid audiences, but once you lose them, they don't just go away -- they frikkin' turn.
I look forward to second season, but I hope they're working on the bible even as we speak.
*there is a theory that this was to show Hurley wasn't supposed to get on the plane -- he was the only one the numbers/island were trying to stop from coming. If so this flashback is fair game. But personally I wouldn't spend five mintues laying obtuse pipe in my cliffhanger finale.
Wednesday, May 25, 2005
Blogrolling
Adding Groovy Age of Horror to the sidebar, just because it's the perfect example of one of the ways the 'Net allows shared hobbies/psychoses to be promulgated. Adding Vestal Vespa to the "We Link, They Link", along with a blog named after my favorite quote about show business: "Nobody Knows Anything".
In the Moviemaking section, adding an incredibly useful, super-tech site, HD for Indies. Everything you need to know about shooting and editing your project in high-def. As more and more big-time humans shoot on high-def and rave about it, I assure you beginners that this is the tech to learn -- if only to understand your options for when you get to production.
In the Moviemaking section, adding an incredibly useful, super-tech site, HD for Indies. Everything you need to know about shooting and editing your project in high-def. As more and more big-time humans shoot on high-def and rave about it, I assure you beginners that this is the tech to learn -- if only to understand your options for when you get to production.
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